ABSTRACT
According to Allmendinger and Haughton (2009), spatial rescaling represents one of the
most significant recent changes in planning. The emergence of “soft spaces”—regions in
which spatial strategy is being made between or alongside formal institutions and pro-
cesses-is a phenomenon associated with contemporary processes of spatial rescaling.
Haughton and Allmendinger (2007) see these soft spaces are “fluid areas . . . between
formal processes where implementation through bargaining, flexibility, discretion and
interpretation dominate” which contrast to “hard spaces” that are “formal visible arenas
and processes, often statutory and open to democratic processes and local political influ-
ence” (p. 306). Also associated with recent processes of spatial rescaling is the use of
“fuzzy boundaries” as a means of breaking away from “the shackles of pre-existing
working patterns which might be variously held to be slow, bureaucratic, or not reflecting
the real geographies of problems and opportunities” (Allmendinger & Haughton, 2009,
p. 619). On the one hand, this trend can be considered to represent a more place-based
approach to planning-responding to the specificities of particular places. On the other
hand, it can be seen as a form of neo-liberalism-trying to shortcut democratic processes
that may be slow or bureaucratic (Haughton et al., 2009).
